April 2010 Editorial

Welcome to the Green Issue

Every year when April rolls around all the print magazines out there put out what they call the “Green Issue”. So like all of them we too have decided to put out a green issue of our own. Being good to the earth is something we all are cool with.

Recycling should be a normal part of your regular routine. Think about it, when you throw a party and after everyone has emptied the contents of all the bottles and cans of their favorite party liquid of choice, recycling all of the empties for the cash they represent just helps to offset the cost in a small way of the next party. This reminds us of a funny night out when a bunch of the staffers were at a house party where the drinking got pretty heavy and the chaos ensued. In the midst of this was one of the party goers that had green on his mind. It was like watching a transient that crashed the party, this guy was trolling the party collecting all the bottles and cans on the DL and loading up a trash bag in the kitchen. After watching this guy in action for a while, one of our staffers started to figure out that this guy was not necessarily collecting all the bottles and cans to be green, he was doing it for the green. Over the course of the night he had a couple of trash bags filled up and had them staged by the back door so he could get them out in hopes that no one would really figure out what he was doing. While he was out on the hunt for more empties we took his loot and hid it. Needless to say when he came back and saw his loot was gone he started to trip out, wondering if he had moved the bags and forgot where he put them -After all he was continuously drinking the warm swill at the bottom of many of the empties.

About five minutes had passed and he was now pretty agitated that he thought someone moved in on his score. Since our crew was partying’ where the living room met the kitchen we were the first people he asked, “Hey did you guys see someone take out the trash, they did a shitty job and made a mess”. We then said back to him, “Yea, we knew the guy was doing something wrong when he took these two big bags and put them in broom closet”. He then rushed over to the closet to see the bags he worked so hard to collect were in there. The laughing from our corner was pretty loud and he knew we had everything to do with the relocated loot. In the end things were cool, and all was forgiven once we replaced his warm swill with a fresh cold one. Through the laughing he said that he was just trying to be a responsible world citizen and recycling. In the end, we figured that the unauthorized recycler ended up doing the party’s host a favor by cleaning up a good chunk of what would have been left for him one he woke up in the morning.

Anyhow, getting back to celebrating this “Green Issue” of the magazine. The more we got to thinking about this whole green thing we came to these conclusions. Why is it that the easiest way try to gain nobility in this society is to proclaim, “I’ve gone green!” Why is it that the Green Issues of print magazines are bigger than the normal issues? If you “truly” wanted to have a green issue, wouldn’t that mean that you would have NO issue that month? With that said, we challenge every one to not buy or pick up any print magazine in the month of April and truly celebrate the Green issue. If a magazine wants to really “go green” and have a Green Issue, then they should put their entire issue online so that there are no natural resources used and our landfills can take a breather. Like the guy who was collecting bottles and cans at a party to put some money in his pockets and not really knowing he was being green, on the opposite side you have magazines that put out a big fat Green Issue because to them it is all about the “green” ad dollars it represents to them and to hell with the earth.

Let’s see how many magazines step up and NOT put out an issue in April to prove they have gone green -Don’t hold your breath.